Writers, these questions and comments are interesting

http://kathrynmagendie.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!

Read Kat's post and the many comments on why and how people buy books and what they think of book signings.

HAYESVILLE NC, BOOK SIGNING AT THE MOUNTAIN VALLEY COUNTRY STORE

The Mountain Valley Country Store, route 69, Hayesville, NC will hold their Christmas Extravaganza on Saturday December 20.

Shirley Uphouse will be signing her book My Dogs My Friends starting around noon.

Glenda Beall will be signing copies of the anthology, Cup of Comfort for Horse Lovers edited by Colleen Sell and published by Adams Media.

This book is filled with stories that celebrate the extraordinary relationship between horse and rider.

Both books make great last minute gifts for animal lovers.

The store has a great selection of items for dogs -- toys, leads, bones and of course, food.

Horse enthusiasts will find jeans, boots, hats, saddles, bridles and grooming tools here.

Saturday, December 20th is the annual Mountain Valley Country Store Christmas Extravaganza! THE EVENT MASTER, Gary St. Pierre, with his all new Christmas Show. The store will be open late with STORE WIDE SAVINGS -- food and refreshments from 4 until 8. Register now for a $500 Shopping Spree to be given away at 7:00 pm. You must be present to win !!!

Shirley and Glenda invite anyone in the Clay and Cherokee area of NC and the folks in north Georgia to come by.

Poems and Stories of Christmas at Moss Library in Hayesville

L. Glenda Barrett

R. Brenda Kay Ledford
C. Shirley Uphouse

Three Netwest members will read at the annual night of poems and stories of Christmas at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC, Thursday evening, December 18, 7:00 PM.

Shirley Uphouse of Marble, NC, Glenda Barrett of Hiawassee, Georgia and Brenda Kay Ledford of Hayesville will share their memories and stories of the holiday season.
The event is sponsored by Friends of the Library and Netwest.

Brenda Kay Ledford is one of the authors in the new anthology, Christmas Presence, published by Catawba Publishing. Brenda Kay, a poet and writer with two poetry books, Shew Bird Mountain and Sacred Fire, recently published by Finishing Line Press has been published in numerous magazines and literary journals such as Pembroke Magazine, Asheville Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Appalachian Heritage, and Our State Magazine. Her first poetry chapbook, Patchwork Memories, received the 2005 Paul Green Multimedia Award from North Carolina Society of Historians.

Glenda Barrett's poetry chapbook, When the Sap Rises, was published earlier this year by Finishing Line Press. Her poems and stories have been widely published in magazines such as Woman's World, Yesterday's Gazette, and most recently accepted for the Journal of Kentucky Studies. Her story, The French Harp, one of the holiday stories in the anthology Christmas Presence, has been reprinted in The Georgia Magazine.

Shirley Uphouse, past Program Coordinator for Netwest, is author of a memoir, My Friends, My Dogs, and her work is widely published in magazines such as Dog Fancy, Smoky Mountain Living and others. One of the stories in her memoir can be read online in The Show Ring, http://www.blogger.com/. Shirley has been a professional dog show judge for over 25 years.

This event is a warm and inviting way to start the season each year. The audience gets involved by reading their own original poems and stories. While enjoying a table laden with a variety of refreshments served by Moss Library staff, attendees enjoy socializing with the writers and others from the community. Bring something to read or come and listen. Authors will be happy to sign their books.

FULL MOON, by Kathryn S. Byer

FULL MOON

Full moon says look I am
over the pinebreak, says give me
your empty glass, pour
all you want, drink, look
out through your windows of ice,
through the eyes of your needles
observe how I climb, lay aside
what you weave on your looms

and see clouds fall away
like cold silk from your shoulders,
be quiet, hear the owl coming back
to the hayloft, shake loose
your long braids and rise up
from your beds, open
windows and curtains, let light
pour like water upon your heads,

all of you women who wait, raise
the shades, throw the shutters
wide, lean from your window ledge
into the great night that beckons
you, smile back at me
and so quietly nobody can hear you
but you, whisper, "Here am I."

by Kathryn Stripling Byer, from BLACK SHAWL, LSU PRESS, '98

Dresses, Dreams, and Beadwood Leaves, by Julia Taylor Ebel

Softcover: $8.95 (ISBN 978-1-932158-85-4)
Published by High Country Publishers/Ingalls Publishing Group
Publication date: January 2009
Available from Ingalls Publishing Group
828) 297-7127
sales@ingallspublishinggroup.com
www.ingallspublishinggroup.com





(Julia Ebel)

Julia Taylor Ebel celebrates nature, heritage and cultural history through stories and poetry. Her books include Orville Hicks: Mountain Stories, Mountain Roots; Addie Clawson: Appalachian Mail Carrier; Walking Ribbon, and most recently, Dresses, Dreams and Beadwood Leaves. The earlier three received North Carolina Society of Historians book awards. Over 50 of her nature poems are published in children’s magazines. Julia leads programs and workshops on keeping stories and on poetry. She lives in Jamestown, North Carolina, but a part of her heart is in the North Carolina mountains, where she finds inspiration for much of her writing.
_____________________________
Rosa May wears dresses made from feed sacks, but her earthy knowledge of roots and herbs gives her hope of owning a store-bought dress and feeds her dream of wearing nurse’s white. Dresses, Dreams and Beadwood Leaves sets a girl’s journey to mold her own self esteem within the cultural history of the North Carolina mountains in the late 1940s, where root and herb gathering has offered many mountain people a way to meet both needs and dreams.

Dresses, Dreams and Beadwood Leaves includes delicate pencil sketches and end notes on root and herb gathering.

(from website: www.juliaebel.com

This description from Julia Ebel's website is only the beginning of a story told in verse that will entertain and move you. Rosa May works to gather beadwood leavees to make enough money to buy a "store-bought" dress. She learns some important lessons about growing up in the process.


NOT ENOUGH

In August,
roots and herbs
add up
but not enough
to buy a dress
and the shoes I need too.
So I choose.

I open the catalog
to the page
with the red plaid dress.
Mama measures me
and helps me
choose the right size.
“You’re getting to be
a young lady,”
she says.

Mama watches me
address the envelope
to Sears, Roebuck
and lick the stamp.

And she watches me skip
to the mailbox
with my order in hand.


WAITING

One week,
two weeks,
three weeks—
how long will it take
to get my package?
I watch each day
for the mail.


CELEBRATION

Daddy comes in
grinning.
“Got a good price on beans today.
Enough to buy flour,
sugar,
and cocoa powder.”

At supper,
we celebrate
with chocolate gravy
on biscuits.


THE PACKAGE

Just in time—
the package came,
wrapped in brown paper,
but the package held
no plaid dress,
bright as autumn trees.

I’d changed my mind
and ordered shoes
to wear with the dress
Mama and I made,
blue calico
with white buttons,
tucks,
and grosgrain ribbon trim—
prettier than the one
at Mr. Kelsey’s store.

Someday soon
I’ll order
that plaid dress.

Someday
I’ll wear white.




--------------------------




Witch Hazel
Beadwood
Hamamelis virginiana Linnaeus

Witch Hazel is a deciduous native shrub or small tree, growing 20 to 30 feet in height. Leaves are asymmetrical and shallowly lobed, 3 to 5 inches long. Witch Hazel grows commonly in moist, rich hardwood forests of Southern Appalachia, but its habitat extends through most of the eastern United States.

The term “beadwood” comes from the hard bead-like seed capsule. When dry, seeds explode from the capsule.

An extract from Witch Hazel leaves, bark, and twigs has long been used medicinally as a mild astringent.






from ROOT AND HERB GATHERING IN SOUTHERN APPALACHIA

The Mountain Environment

Traditional Home Uses of Roots and Herbs
For centuries, people have used native plants as food sources. People also have eased their pain and soothed illnesses with teas and salves made from roots and herbs. Mountain people knew these herbal remedies. They respected local “herb doctors,” who shared knowledge of plants’ healing powers. As trained doctors and modern medicine became more available in the mid 1900s, people used herbal remedies less.


Gathering
Many Appalachian people learned to recognize the native plants. They spoke of these plants with common names, like beadwood (witch hazel), life plant, and turkey corn. They gathered roots and herbs and passed along knowledge of wild plants to their children. By the age of six or seven, children could help with root and herb gathering.
Mountain people first gathered roots and herbs for personal use. Later, they sold these plant materials. Families bought school clothes and shoes for the children with profits from root and herb gathering. Native plants provided the primary income for some families. Money from the sale of roots and herbs not only bought clothing but also helped pay electrical bills and property taxes.

Excerpt From Turnback Creek by Lonnie Busch

The reflection of the moon shattered when Cole’s lure hit the water. He stared at the rings radiating out, at the moon slowly repairing itself on the black surface. Cole hated fishing on nights like this—when the bass weren’t biting, the stillness so complete it seemed the world had stopped breathing—but night was the only time he had for himself.
Even the unexplainable breeze that always spread a faint ripple across the surface of Turnback Creek was oddly absent. Cole had just cocked his wrist to cast again when he heard a noise deep in the woods, a rumbling mechanical sound like a generator firing, a deep popping followed by a dull continuous thudding. He imagined one of those big Hollywood wind machines, the kind he’d seen on the MGM Studio tour out in California years ago, except that those fans weren’t nearly as noisy as this contraption. This sound brought to mind a bulldozer, but he quickly ruled that out—no one would be crazy enough to drive a bulldozer in the dead of night. Not in the woods.
Using his trolling motor, Cole pointed his bass boat toward the commotion. Halfway across the cove, the noise stopped. Instinctively, he drew his foot from the pedal, as if to match the sudden silence, the boat drifting soundlessly through the darkness. He swept his gaze across the woods along the bank, the trees and foliage forming a black jagged wall. His eyes burned from lack of sleep and his back was sore from lifting Elsie. When the rumbling sprang to life again, he laid his fishing rod down and turned the boat toward the bank.

Lonnie Busch is both artist and writer, and designed the cover for his novella, Turnback Creek. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in such publications as Southwest Review, The Minnesota Review, The Baltimore Review, The Southeast Review, Roanoke Review, Talking River Review, Flint Hills Review, Willow Review, The Iconoclast, Pisgah Review, MoonShine Review and others. Stories of his have also been finalists in the World’s Best Short Short Story Competition in 2004, The Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction in 2005, and most recently, the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award.

As a painter/illustrator, Busch has created artwork for corporations and institutions across the United States, including the 2002 “Greetings from America” stamps and the 2004 “Summer Olympics” stamp for the US Postal Service.

His most recent projects include the cover for Jimmy Buffett’s novel, A Salty Piece of Land, as well as a block of forty stamps for the Postal Service in May of 2006, entitled, “Wonders of America.” He now makes his home in the mountains of North Carolina.

Question?

Does anyone know how to salvage indentations while posting a Poem on the blog, or other form of work? I have tried different approaches and it continues to align all to the left. I feel proper indentations go a long way in emphasizing a point.

Donovan

Southern Appalachian Poetry, ed. by Marita Garin

I know this book has been posted before, but I thought folks might like to see more about it, particularly the introduction, and especially Marita's own poems at the end of it. It would make a lovely gift this season, and certainly a welcome addition to local libraries, whether public or college/university. KSB




Southern Appalachian Poetry
An Anthology of Works by 37 Poets
Edited by Marita Garin

ISBN 978-0-7864-3429-9
photos, glossary, notes, index
275pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2008
Price: $39.95

(Go to http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3429-9 )

Marita Garin began this anthology of Southern Appalachian Poetry many years ago. What set it apart for me at the time was its incorporation of essays by the poets themselves, bringing to their poetry a voice having little to do with any editorial bias. Then its title was "From Bloodroot to Summit," what I considered a resonant image for what she was trying to do in this gathering of poets. To be honest, I hadn't expected the book to reach the summit, if that's what one wants to call it, of publication, considering the difficulty of placing such a collection.

Marita, however, was stubborn, and now, thanks to her determination and hard work, we have what must be considered a definitive collection of poetry from the Southern Appalachian region, from a particular time in the region's literary renaissance. Several of my poems, for example, are from much earlier books. My current mountain voices are a shade darker, starker, and more contemporary in their concerns about environmental destruction and loss. As Marita points out: *The essays were written in the early 1990s, years before publication of the anthology. Many of the poets have since moved to locations or jobs other than those to which they refer. (Updates on their publications and awards are available in the Notes on the Poets.) What they chose to write then retains its significance in their insights into and documen-tation of many aspects of Appalachian culture, much of which was, even as they wrote, in flux, eventually to be altered by social forces intruding, bringing inevitable change."

A second collection might be called for now, letting the poets respond to those earlier pieces in both essay and recent poems.

Here is an excerpt from Marita Garin's Introduction. Following it will be some of her own poems. Too often we forget that those workhorses of anthologies, the editors, are themselves writers of poetry, fiction, and essay. Marita Garin is one of the region's best poets, as you will discover.




(A recent wintry view from Newfound Gap in the Great Smoky Mountains)

INTRODUCTION

To describe a region: that is my purpose in bringing these poems together. When I first undertook this project, I was certain the literature of the Southern Appalachians had evolved to the degree that the material would be available. The area was to include north Georgia, western North Carolina, east Tennessee, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and a corner of southwest Virginia all of which share an historical and cultural identity apart from the rest of the Appalachian mountains. The poets were to be native-born writers who still live in the region, those who have moved away yet for whom Appalachia still has a claim on their imagination and emotions, and newcomers whose sensibilities have been shaped by the region and who write about it with insight and sensitivity.

As poems arrived in my study, a collective voice began to emerge, so compelling in its variety, honesty, and intensity that I needed to let it speak on its own, to tell me what it wanted to say about Appalachia. I trusted what would take shape would be a balanced view of an extremely complex region yielding on close examination human qualities with much deeper roots and finer sensibilities than are usually attributed to it.

...A few generalizations may be helpful for readers not well-acquainted with the area. Incorporated into the poems as naturally as any item in a familiar landscape, poverty has been (and still can be) a fact of life. Intimately known, it has at times been an exhaustion of the land—steep hillside farms that lose their good soil within a few years after the land is cleared—and of the people. The struggle to survive may involve the imposition of external regulations concerning land use and mineral rights or dealing with welfare and black lung disease benefits, coal mine owners, unions, and a volatile coal economy; or it can be a more personal conflict with neighbors or kinfolks (as in the notorious feuds of the past). Another way to talk about poverty in Appalachia is to mention the historic exploitation of natural resources by timber and coal interests and also of the people—their lifestyle, values, crafts, and music—by outsiders that can leave them feeling the poorer—vulnerable and defenseless.



(Roads through the mountains were difficult to engineer. This is one of the tunnels on the road through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.)


...Isolation has been unmistakable in the region. Given the difficult terrain, enormous finances are needed to build roads and railroads. Until recently, these often did not exist for areas that could not yield an economic (or political) return for the investment. Isolation was a truth about early pioneer life all over the country, but in Appalachia it persisted through much of the 20th century and has shaped the inhabitants’ sense of self... .

...[This] identity comes from a deep sense of belonging to the land, such an intimate alliance that it is felt to be an extension of self, a bond that may persist long after one leaves the region. That sense of origin exerts a primal pull with all the power of the natural imagery in many of the poems.




(From Newfound Gap)

Family is another deeply rooted value in mountain life. Kinfolks, ancestors, one’simmediate family--all contribute to who one is, but links with the past are especially strong. At times, past and family, along with the land, are inextricable in their grip on the individual and result in conflict—feelings of grief or disloyalty—when choices are made to discard the old ways or to sell land that has been in the family for generations.

Another characteristic of the region...is that time flows differently here. That dreamy blue haze off in the distance where ridge upon mountain ridge becomes an endless ocean stretching to the horizon may account for a charged effect on mind and body, literally drawing the senses beyond physical limits.



(Autumn view from the Blue Ridge Parkway)
Marita concludes her essay by pointing out that "Self-revelation is well-suited to poetry, given the intensity, inner musical demands, focus, and brevity of the form. Certainly the act of centering one’s consciousness invites any writer to work in areas beneath surface realities in a never-ending effort to discover truths. If life is to be regarded as an initiation into the higher mysteries of selfhood, then Appalachia might well be seen as one of its difficult testing grounds. In “Remembering Wind Mountain at Sunset” Chappell says, “Here is the place where pain is born." There is always, though, the "driving need to sing the pain, to sing through the pain, and to let the singing become an expression of pain transformed into something that rises above the hardship and eases it, at least for awhile.




(Ice along the road through the Smokies, driving toward Gatlinburg)


And now the question that I and many other writers have had to grapple with in workshop and interview:

"While working on this project, I was seriously questioned as to whether a truly regional literature is possible today given the mobility of the American population and the enormous technological changes reaching into every home and affecting life in even the most out-of-the-way places.




(Pigeon Forge, TN. The future of Appalachia?)

Her response?
" I strongly believe regional literature is possible for Appalachia because Appalachia still exists in the mind, memory, imagination, and even the life of its writers in very powerful ways."

No matter how hard we resist labels, we carry within us an interior landscape that defines us, a landscape that sustains and moves us to song and story-telling.





(On the Blue Ridge Parkway, outside Blowing Rock, NC)


Here then, are some of Marita's own poems.


_____________





"A Yard Near Elizabethton, Tennessee"

Where Tin Can Hollow Road crosses Minton Road
and runs back into the hills,
where joe-pye weed guards the established
trash, a mound with its dog,
its bottles, its cracked, prominent sink,
five birds in flight fold into one
fugitive shape and I want to ask why
we who do not love
these hills, drive the blind
violent curves past Harmony Baptist Church,
past the starved look of bare-wood
porches, back into the hollow
where the hill’s flank
is cold, protective, the yard
isolated in which a retarded boy, fastened
to a wheelchair, his hands
held like broken
wings, talks to air, to insects pulling bright
strands of light between the trees
and grass, repairing
something torn, the boy
instructing them, then raising the perfect
fabric in his arms to catch
nothing we could see
plummeting toward earth
without weight, without wings.



"From a Ridge in Eastern Kentucky"

A man is standing alone
looking down into the Cumberland Valley
where the land folds in
on the thin gash
of a road. He watches a woman
carrying a child, her husband
has the baby. They climb
to a stray clump of daffodils,
too far for him
to see her face as she bends
to flowers, color rising in her hands
like music plucked
from a dulcimer, one bloom
given to the father, one
to each child. Then
they are gone, past
the desolate car rusting
in weeds, the scraps
of coal, the mud yard. Night begins
its claim on the valley
the way absolute grief absorbs
the living beside a grave.
Above them, the man thinks
there is nothing here
he could want, not this interval
binding them, returning
him to himself.

"Taken Near the Jocko River, Montana – 1932"

They stand together, unchanged, not now
but then, in a clearing
beside the river while their horses graze
nearby. Both wear jodhpurs
and boots. Having drawn apart, they still
clasp each other’s waist, fastened
like halves of a hinged shell
in a moment so private
and faded it appears to be
twilight except that this
is a beginning—my parents, a few months
before marriage, before the assault
of years and children and only a river
is rushing past in this dream
where they see no tragedy
in the multiple arms of dark spruce
held out to retrieve them
nor in sunlight as it shears
away from water with such blinding
clarity they believe the river
has stopped, they will be here forever.

A Poem a Day. Why not try it?

I was just browsing the website of Osondu Booksellers in Waynesville, one of my favorite Indie Bookstores, second only to City Lights Books in Sylva, owned and run by my good friend Joyce Moore, and found the results of this poll, asking which book group would you be most interested in joining.

Mystery---7.36.8%
Local History---7 .36.8%
Poetry---5 .26.3%

Well, it's true only 19 people responded, and even 5 percent wanting a poetry book group is encouraging. But the next poll asked which book genre would you like to see Osondu's expanding and poetry was not even on the list! It's time for that to change. Because, in case you haven't heard, "change" is the word these days.

So, here is my suggestion during this wintry weather, and beyond: Go ask your bookseller or a friend who reads and/or writes poems to recommend a good book of poetry, and every afternoon when the holiday stress is getting to you, sit down with a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, and read one poem from that book.

Just one.

That's all you have to do. Read it slowly as you sip your beverage, take deep breaths as Dr. Weil urges us to do, and simply let the language steep in your mind as your tea has steeped in the hot water.

I know, I know, we all love to get hooked by so-called "page-turners." Oh, I couldn't wait to find out who did this or said that! Well, poetry asks you to wait. And this time of year, we'd all feel calmer if we slowed down and read just one poem slowly and gratefully. As for the tea--right now I'm sipping Afternoon Darjeeling, with milk and just a tad of brown sugar. It's delicious. The poem that's waiting for me? Maybe one by several of my favorite poets---Nancy Simpson, Cecilia Woloch, William Wordsworth, Bill Brown, Seamus Heaney, doris davenport, and on into poetic infinity.

I'll join you there. We'll share a cup of tea and a book of poetry together.

Will the BOOK as we know and love it survive?

(As you can see, books are everywhere in our house. This is the dining room!


Take a look at this. What do you think? It's from this morning's New York Times.


How to Publish Without Perishing
By JAMES GLEICK
Even in the digital age, books have a chance for new life:
as a physical object, and as an idea, and as a set of
literary forms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30gleick.html?th&emc=th

(Here's the conclusion)

In bookstores, the trend for a decade or more has been toward shorter shelf life. Books have had to sell fast or move aside. Now even modest titles have been granted a gift of unlimited longevity.

What should an old-fashioned book publisher do with this gift? Forget about cost-cutting and the mass market. Don’t aim for instant blockbuster successes. You won’t win on quick distribution, and you won’t win on price. Cyberspace has that covered.

Go back to an old-fashioned idea: that a book, printed in ink on durable paper, acid-free for longevity, is a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it.


James Gleick, the author, most recently, of “Isaac Newton,” is on the board of the Authors Guild.

Christmas Presence authors signing in Hayesville,NC Dec. 6

Phillips and Lloyd Books on the square in Hayesville, NC

Brenda Kay Ledford of Hayesville, NC is one of the 45 women writers in the anthology Christmas Presence, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham.

Glenda Barrett of Hiawassee, GA wrote "The French Harp" a true story about her beloved grandmother, which is included in Christmas Presence.

Carole Thompson of Blairsville, GA Netwest Rep.

Her story is "A Bag of Sugar for Paula" an inspiring story that takes place in a most unlikely place - a grocery store.

Also on hand Saturday for signing is Cherokee County native, Nancy Sales Cash, author of Ritual River.

WRITING CONTESTS DEADLINES APPROACHING

Deadlines are near. Get your entries into the contests listed below before it is too late. Let's see some Netwest writers among the winners next year.


NCWN Writing Contests

Written by Ed Southern
Tuesday, 18 November 2008 16:43


The deadlines for the North Carolina Writers' Network's writing competitions are fast approaching.
Each year, the Network awards more than $30,000 in prizes, honoraria, and stipends through its four writing contests. These contests are an excellent opportunity for writers to gain exposure and publication for themselves and their work. Network members receive a discount on the entry fees.
Follow the highlighted links for further information on the following competitions, including submission guidelines:
The Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition encourages the creation of lasting nonfiction work that is outside the realm of conventional journalism. Subjects may include traditional categories such as reviews, travel articles, profiles or interviews, place/history pieces, or culture criticism. The first-, second-, and third-place winners will receive $300, $200, and $100, respectively. Additionally, the Rambler magazine will consider the winner for publication. Submissions must be postmarked by November 30.

The Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize honors internationally celebrated North Carolina novelist Thomas Wolfe. The winner receives $1,000 and possible publication in the Thomas Wolfe Review. Submissions must be postmarked by December 20.

The Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition is named for UNC-Greensboro's legendary poet and teacher. The winner receives $200, and publication of the winning poem in the Crucible literary journal. Submissions must be postmarked by January 31.

The Doris Betts Fiction Prize awards the first-place winner with a prize of $250. Winners and finalists will be considered for publication in the North Carolina Literary Review. Submissions must be postmarked by February 1.

Past winners of NCWN contests include Malcolm Campbell, David Poston, Alex Grant, and Marjorie Hudson.

--------------------------

HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR OR

How I Learned to Love Radiation

By Penny Morse


The nurse gently eases me down onto the padded table where my body fits into a foam form, custom made for my torso during a previous appointment. My arms are raised back and above my head, such an incredibly vulnerable position, naked from the waist up as I am.
I had turned up the volume on my headset to let the exquisite beauty of Pavarotti’s voice fill my senses, trying to blot out this experience. He sings of Panis Angelicus, the bread of angels. Now the sopranos soar over his words, mingling with violins. Are they the voices of angels or young boys? No matter, they sing of love and gratitude, and I am grateful for the encompassing music swelling through the earphones, such a blessed distraction.
Two nurses flip switches to make sure the radiation machine and I are positioned just so. A large, round head comes closer to me with a slick whir of precise movements calibrated on a computer. Now it hovers over my breast like a lover, its razor thin beams of red light make the sign of the cross exactly on my left nipple. Frantically, I decide to give it a name as I face this strange contraption. Holy Moses I call it, a biblical and strong name. Holy Moses, the healing machine. I raise one arm to pat its cold metallic casing and am scolded for moving my arms out of their exact position within the form.
Bring on your technology, O Healing One, and zap my body with mysterious and potent medicine. Is it not magic that you can penetrate to the tissue without rending open the skin, without a drop of blood? I resisted taking this step toward prevention, believing myself to be cancer-free with the last lump removal. Then I weighed the pros and cons and let fear of the future make my decision.
Anger. That’s what I really feel. Anger for giving in, for my lack of self-confidence. Who knows my body and soul better than I? Evidently, a team of white-coated medical experts who can be very persuasive. Now the time has come, and it is imperative that I made peace with radiation.
With this first treatment, O Holy Moses, I declare that you are a savior, bringing only healing energy. I am grateful and will turn the experience into a positive and loving event. Yes, you may demand the sacrifice of burned flesh, of cramping breast pain, of aching bone joints, perhaps even hair loss. This is the price I am prepared to pay in the current, yet still primitive marketplace.
Now I visualize us working as a team, though I know deep within myself that I can manipulate and turn away your radiation energy. . . if I so choose. Every woman holds this ability within each cell. After all, we create, carry, nourish and give life, such is our magnificent power that passeth understanding. How simple it would be to disable this machine, for I am a living being while it is only the sum of metal parts. Instead, I beam pure love back to it and declare that each moment is perfect, each hot ray is a miracle, a gift.
The moment your radiation invades my body, I feel a shock wave through my entire being in a nanosecond. Not a heavy or unbearable pain, but a burning sensation along all my systems, proof that violation has taken place. As the mental guardian in charge of my corporeal body, I tremble with surrender to this betrayal. Forgive me.
Pavarotti finishes his song of the angels and moves on to Ave Maria, dear holy mother; dear all mothers who have survived before me, be with me in my hour of need. Tears slide down the sides of my face.

In only a few minutes it is over. The nurses reappear from their safe place behind protective barriers. Pavarotti concludes his song. I am assisted to sit up and swing my legs off the treatment table. I coat my heated breast with soothing salve, then clothe myself. And like an obedient dog that has performed the play-dead trick well, I am offered a cookie as a reward.


Penny lives in Asheville, writes in a variety of genres, and is pleased to claim four years cancer-free. She can be contacted at fairlight_inc@hotmail.com.

An Appalachian Songbook by Kathryn Stripling Byer

On Thanksgiving Day, I had something special for dessert. WDAV fm station ran the recording of "An Appalachian Songbook," a composition by Kenneth Frazelle, with soprano Jacquelyn Culpepper, pianist Phillip Bush, and me reading poems from WILDWOOD FLOWER and BLACK SHAWL interwoven into the musical fabric. This recording was made at St. Peter's Church, where the Charlotte Chamber Music Series has become a popular program in the area. You may download it at WDAV.org, where you will also find information about the performers. (http://www.wdav.org/printable_html.cfm?page=1_222_0&cat=1&subcat=222&subsub=0&do=view&id=210)



Here are two poems from the program:

DULCIMER


No, I'll not listen.
The sound of it's too sweet,
like honey I licked from the spoon
while he sat on my porch
and played Shady Grove.
"You are the darling of my heart,
stay till the sun goes down."

I remember the hoot owl came closer.
Moths burned their wings in his candle wick.
"Midnight," I said,
and his fingers stirred wind from the strings,
begging, Stay, while he cradled the wood in his lap

for a last song, the hazel-
green eyes of a lost lady.
Weep Willow.
Soul of the laurel shade.

"Come," he said, pointing through dark
to the bed of leaves
we'd gathered, wildflowers strewn
on a pillow of moss.
But I sent him away,
letting go of his hand
without whispering as I do
now when my wits fail me, oh my
sweet, nothing
but sweet
good for nothing man.

from Black Shawl, (LSU press 1998)



EMPTY GLASS

Last night I stood
ringing my empty glass
under the black empty sky
and beginning, of all

things, to sing. The mountains
paid no attention.
The cruel ice did not
melt. But just for a moment

the hoot owl grew silent.
And somewhere the wolves
hiding out in their dens
opened cold, sober eyes.

Here's to you I sang,
meaning the midnight
the dark moon
the empty well,

meaning myself
upon whom
the snow fell
without any apology.

From WILDWOOD FLOWER (LSU Press 1992)

Natalie Grant, Nancy Simpson, Janice Moore, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, Glenda Beall at John C. Campbell Folk School, Thursday evening, November 20.

Poets and Writers reading Poems and Stories is a monthly event at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Two Netwest members are featured. Natalie Grant from Topton, NC and Jayne Jaudon Ferrer of Greenville, SC presented a most interesting program to an appreciative group comprised of folk school students from distant states as well as local writers in the community.

NORTH CAROLINA WRITERS' FALL CONFERENCE

Nancy Sales Cash, Mary Jo Dyre, Lana Hendershott, Glenda Beall, Ken Kinnett, and Pat Davis at conference last year.

Did you attend the Fall Writers' Conference held by NCWN in Durham this month?

If you did, please leave a comment and tell us about it.

If you did not go, but you wanted to go (like me) tell us why you were longing to be there, but just couldn't make it this year.

My driver was out of commission. That's why I didn't make it.

Ann Melton writes about her home town, Sylva, NC

I recently met Ann Melton author of A Place Called Home. Her second book, Home is where the Heart Is is a sequel to the first.

Ann Davis Melton grew up in the small Southern town of Sylva and went on to earn her undergraduate degree from Western Carolina University and her doctorate from the University of South Carolina. She worked as a language arts consultant for the Western Regional Education Center before becoming Superintendent of Madison County Schools. She is now retired and lives in Waynesville with her husband, Frank.

This excerpt from A Place Called Home will give you an idea of her writing as she tells stories about life in the quiet and safe village of Sylva where she grew up in the 40's, 50's and 60's..

Chapter two

Across town things weren’t nearly as quiet at the Will Sherrill house. Will was a lawyer and a tough one at that, and he ran his household the way he ran his law practice. Of late, however, things seemed to have gotten out of hand. The active social life of his older children was interfering with his rest, and they seemed to be coming home later and later at tonight. The week before he had called a family meeting and announced that the doors would be locked at exactly 11:00 P.M. There would be no more of this late night foolishness.

However, things had not worked out exactly as he had planned. He had gone to Glenville to meet with a client and had found the new client’s run of corn liquor greatly to his liking. He and the client had sat around after the meeting and enjoyed too many drinks, and time had slipped away. At 11:30 P.M., though he knocked and knocked, no one answered his own front door. He carried no key – they had never locked the doors before. He went around to the back and even to the side doors to no avail. As a last resort, he began yelling loudly, so loudly, in fact, that even the neighbors heard him. Finally, a light came on in a distant part of the house, and the slight figure of his wife approached the door.

However, instead of unlocking the door, she quietly said, “Will, last week you laid down the law and said that the doors were to be locked at eleven o’clock and that no one – no one would be allowed in after that. It is now eleven-thirty, Will. I’m afraid you will just have to sleep in the barn tonight,” and with that, she returned to bed.

He couldn’t believe it! Of course, he was always surprised by Mary’s strong side; he had to admit that. He just hated that he had been beaten by his own game. His wife such a quiet, peace-loving individual – so unlike him, and everyone in town loved her. It was to Mary that folks came if they needed to talk, for she was a wonderful listener, and all admired her wisdom. She always had a fire in the wood-burning cook stove in the kitchen, and a kettle of water always sat on top, ready to offer a cup of tea, and there were always good things to eat in the warming closet above the stove. In fact, Will could just taste some of those goodies right now. I might just be able to sleep if I had a warm glass of milk and a couple of her sugar cookies right now, he thought to himself.

It proved to be a long night for Will. He slept in his clothes of course, and was lucky enough to find two horse blankets for cover and fresh hay to lie on, but he had a difficult time falling asleep. He could not get comfortable no matter which way he lay. He also had a great deal on his mind. The next day he would have to present his closing arguments in a case that had proven to be long and ugly, and he needed to be at his best. A group wished to build a dam at Glenviile, and he was representing the environmentalists who did not want to see the beautiful stream dammed. He tossed and turned all night planning his closing remarks. “Gall durn it!” It was cold and he was uncomfortable. “How could he think in these conditions?” He also needed to relieve himself of several glasses of the homebrew he had consumed, but he hated to get out from under the warm covers – and that is when his closing statements formed in his mind.

The next day dawned clear and bright, and when Will got to the house, he found his breakfast on the table and everyone acting as though nothing unusual had happened. Except for an occasional look one child would give another or a slight upturned mouth, the meal went as usual. As soon as breakfast was over, he bathed, dressed, and left for the courthouse with his briefcase in hand.

He arrived in the courtroom about nine o’clock and found several people milling about. By nine –thirty the courtroom was full. The judge appeared soon after, and by eleven-thirty all witnesses had been called, and it was time for closing arguments.

He knew he was not going to win the case. The community needed the power plant too badly, and this was really the best place to build a dam.
What the hell, he thought, as he rose to approach the jury. He might as well enjoy the moment. Looking into the eyes of each man and woman in the jury box, he spoke of the pristine beauty of the mountains and the stream that would be ruined if this dam was built.

He spoke of the wildlife that abounded and the detriment to them, and he spent a great deal of time convincing the jury that the dam and power plant would not be everything they had hoped it would be.

When he felt he had the jury just where he wanted them, he delivered his closing remark. Letting his voice rise so that it could be heard by one and all he said, “And now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I wish to inform you that there is more water power below my belt than there will ever be in Glenville Dam,” and with that he turned and sat down.

The silence in the courtroom was long. He could hear his heart beating, and he could feel the laughter rising up in him until he felt he might burst.
Finally, the judge got his wits about him, gave the charge to the jury, and they filed out. Grabbing his papers, Will Sherrill made a dash for the door.

Will Sherrill was Ann's grandfather and an important character in the book. Ann's books can be found at City Lights Books in Sylva.

GARY CARDEN ON NCWN FALL WRITERS CONFERENCE

Gary sent this email regarding his experience at the NCWN Fall Writers and Publishers Conference

I had a ball at the conference. It was a hard trip and I drove five hours through rain and fog to the Raleigh/Durham Hilton. However, once I got there, I was treated like visiting royalty. I made a lot of friends and it was a gratifying experience to be with folks who shared my interests. There were playwrights there, fiction writers, non-fiction writers and journalists. I suspect that we have those people up here, but I rarely meet them.

I heard Ron Rash's keynote speech and it was a winner. He talked about research and the fact that it sometimes comes dangerously close to eclipsing the actual writing of a novel. He addressed its significance in relation to Serena and talked about eagles and rattlesnakes. He also discussed the "chorus" in the novel, the voices of the workers in the lumber camp that enabled him to add richness to his plot.

The workshop that I taught, a total 18 people who were interested in converting oral history into effective theatre was a wonderful experience. I had playwrights in the class that were far more experienced than I, but the basic simplicity of what I presented appealed to them. I am still getting calls from them, and I have even been advised as to how to promote myself in the piedmont. That was wonderful to hear, but I prefer to mimic the mountain laurel and "grow where I am planted."

The conference offered endless opportunities for writers and the display area in the lobby was filled with folks who offered opportunities that ranged from self-publishing to manuscript evaluation. Several publishers were soliciting regional history and non-fiction, memoirs, essays, etc.

There was also an impressive display of North Carolina writers ranging from Ron Rash to Vicki Lane (who I had dinner with) and new works from people like Jill McCorkle, Reynolds Price, Lee Smith, Randall McKehan, Ruth Moose ... all of whom I have been reading for years. I was impressed enough by a fellow named Stacy Cochran to buy his video on "How to Get Published and How to Get an Agent" and I brought it home where Ben Eller and I watched it and decided that it was worth the money. He also has a website.

I was also approached by some media people who asked about interviews for local TV shows and radio programs, but it depresses me to think that I have to drive to Raleigh to be interviewed. I have a healthy ego, but I am not driving five hours to be interviewed.

In fact, that is pretty much the way I feel about the Conference. It was like a candy store for writers, but it is in Raleigh. I guess our resources are scant by comparison, but I do intend to find whatever I can in this region. I won't drive to Raleigh, but I will drive to Asheville. There seems to be a tendency to hunker down and try to practice our art in a very narrow area ... like a twenty-mile radius of home. That needs to change.

Gary Carden lives in Sylva, NC. He is a storyteller, writer, playwright, teacher and journalist. Contact him at gcarden498@aol.com

Country Music, for Debbie McGill

For Debbie McGill's Farewell party, I wrote a poem for her, which I thought you might like to see. The short poem before it is today's ncpoetlaureate header, written by a 5th grader at an elementary school in Taylorsville. I received 48 poems from the 5th grade!
----------------------------------------------------

Bring me all your hopes,
you hopers.
Bring me all your heartbeats of hope.
That I may wrap them in a deep red cloth,
Away from the rejecting souls of the world. -CB -----Sugar Loaf Elementary School
_________________________________________________________



(Jennifer Nettles, of Sugarland. Getty Images)


COUNTRY MUSIC

(a letter-poem written for Debbie McGill while traveling back home to North Carolina)

Dear Debbie, Last night I watched the Country Music Awards,
thinking all the way through it how seldom real melody
burst through that slick Nashville razzle-dazzle: The worst of it?
A black leather mini-dress hugging a backside that looked to be
bigger than mine. Or, those false sequined eyelashes
three inches long on the bland baby-blues of the mistress of ceremonies--
two dozen changes of wardrobe and two dozen layers
of lipstick! Why did I keep watching? Waiting for Sugarland,
the duo from Georgia whose singer wears nary a false eyelash
and does her own hair.* Who sings like a dove
or a diva, depending on whichever song she writes. Heck, why be pompous
about it? A good song’s a good poem. And Lordy, how I wanted one
to rise out of that racket and make me sit stock still and listen.
We both wanted that, you and me, and for almost four years we found
it. Well, most of the time. Yep, we made a good Search Party,


savvy and just enough serious, just enough silly to giggle through
e-mails and telephone calls, and you patient enough to put up with
my own diva tantrums. ( You know what I’m talking about!)
Now I feel like I’m losing my lodestar, my compass, my native scout
leading the way through the sagebrush. A real poet herself,
though she never would talk about that. Whose editor’s pen
could work magic. (Pero siempre con palabras muy dulce.)
I found my own Sugarland there at the Arts Council,
the two of us singing duets that we’ll never forget,
like a good country song, or the aria I’m listening to now
on the radio, praising the ongoing sweetness of art. Love you,

Kay

* Jennifer Nettles

Below, a new country music duo (now that Debbie is no longer Literature Director, she can be the real poet that she is): The Sweet Heartbeats! Stay tuned to your favorite country blogspot for their songs!

Debbie McGill Leaves NC Arts Council

Today is the last day that my friend Debbie McGill will serve as Literary Director on the NC Art Council's staff. I need all the happy thoughts I can muster. I will miss her, and the state will, too. Our literary community owes a great deal to her hard work and belief in the power of literature. Here is Council Director Mary Regan's "Recollection". (http://www.ncarts.org/email/NovDec08/)




For the past 20 years Debbie has been a leader and friend to writers and writing in North Carolina during her impressive tenure. When a wonderful staff person leaves for a new job I feel both happiness for her new opportunity and real sadness at losing an employee who contributed so much to her field and cared so much for her constituents.

Debbie was widely recognized as one of the leading literature directors at any state arts agency in the country. She extended the reach of the Arts Council's grant programs for individual artists to include not only writers of fiction, poetry, and plays but also writers of literary nonfiction, literary translation, original work in languages other than English, and work intended for children, as well as spoken-word artists and screenwriters. With the appointments first of Fred Chappell and later Kathryn Stripling Byer to the post of North Carolina Poet Laureate, she developed programs that have enhanced the capacity of the poet laureate to serve the people of the state directly and actively. Both as an ally and a grantmaker she encouraged organizers in their efforts to be ambitious and creative in the ways they use literature to improve quality of life in their communities.

Debbie will become the Senior Editor at Family Health International (FHI), based in Research Triangle Park. FHI is a nonprofit organization active in public health projects in 70 countries. Debbie will manage the editing and production of FHI's publications.

Debbie's last day at the Arts Council is November 21. We will miss her enthusiasm, energy, intelligence, and wit, which have created so much good will for the Arts Council in the writing community. We wish her all the best in her new job.

----Mary Regan, NC Arts Council